Since Wil Gesler's earliest articulation (Gesler, 1992; Gesler, 1996) key thinkers in the field of therapeutic landscapes have sought to emphasise the embodied, contextual and wholly relational ...nature of the relationship that exists between people and place. However, the extant research has tended to focus on the relational healing experience as this occurs ‘in the moment’ and with reference to a specific location or site of healing, with less attention being paid to what happens to people when they return to their ordinary or everyday places. In this paper, we reflect on findings from visual ethnographic work (including photography and film) that explored the therapeutic landscape experiences of people with intellectual disabilities engaged in care farming interventions for health and wellbeing. The study also recruited farm staff and family members or carers to take part, and comprised 20 participants in total. Having identified a gap in our understanding, consideration is given to wider impact that engaging in these sorts of activities had on the everyday lives of the participants in this study. We argue that this study has identified two types of therapeutic journey that broadly fit the experiences of study participants. The first type of journey denotes landscape experiences that are transformative. Here the therapeutic power of the care farm landscape resides in the ability of activities conducted on care farms to influence other aspects of participants' lives in ways that promote wellbeing. By contrast, there is another type of journey where the therapeutic power of the care farm resides in its ability to ameliorate challenging or harmful life situations, thus offering people a temporary site of respite or refuge. We conclude that these findings denote an important development for this sub-field of health geography, not only because they draw attention to the transformative power of the therapeutic encounter, but also the broader socio-spatial environments in which people live and ways in which these can limit that power.
•A visual ethnographic study on the role of care farms as therapeutic spaces.•Focuses on the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities.•Utilises the concept of therapeutic landscapes as a theoretical framework.•Draws critical attention to the transformative power of the therapeutic encounter.
A problem that impedes the progress in Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research is the difficulty in reproducing the results of different papers. Comparing different algorithms at present is very ...difficult. Some improvements have been made by the use of standard datasets to evaluate different algorithms. However, the lack of a comparison framework still exists. In this paper, we construct a new general comparison framework to compare different algorithms on several standard datasets. All these datasets correspond to sensory motor BCIs, and are obtained from 21 subjects during their operation of synchronous BCIs and 8 subjects using self-paced BCIs. Other researchers can use our framework to compare their own algorithms on their own datasets. We have compared the performance of different popular classification algorithms over these 29 subjects and performed statistical tests to validate our results. Our findings suggest that, for a given subject, the choice of the classifier for a BCI system depends on the feature extraction method used in that BCI system. This is in contrary to most of publications in the field that have used Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) as the classifier of choice for BCI systems.
The objective of the paper herein, on the 30th anniversary of the first democratic and free
elections after the fall of the totalitarian regime in Slovakia, is to assess whether or not the right to
...vote in the Slovak Republic really belongs to everyone. The subject of the examination are four
categories of persons whom the Constitution of the Slovak Republic and the laws formally grant the
right to vote, but in various ways restricted or still restrict the practical exercise of this right. These
groups are as follows: prisoners, intellectually disabled people, persons located abroad and persons
who may pose a risk to public health. Not only the valid legal regulation, but also the decision making
activity of the Slovak Constitutional Court, will be the subject of the analysis of the first two
categories. The conclusion of the article also includes suggestions and recommendations aimed at
ensuring that the right to vote in Slovakia to be truly universal, or in other words, recommendations
aimed at ensuring an opportunity to vote to everyone whom the Constitution and laws grant the very
right.
Discrimination and exclusion have been associated with mental health issues for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This mixed-methods study examines the impact of Reality ...Ministries (RM), a Christian community center open to all abilities and faiths, on participants' views toward disability and mental health. Semi-structured interviews were administered to 32 RM community members. Results associate participation in RM with greater disability acceptance, lower loneliness, higher self-esteem and mental wellbeing, more and closer friendships, and higher participation in personally meaningful activities. Findings support the importance of a community of belonging for the wellbeing of people with and without disabilities.
Background
It is unknown how the novel Coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2, the cause of the current acute respiratory illness COVID‐19 pandemic that has infected millions of people, affects people with ...intellectual and developmental disability (IDD). The aim of this study is to describe how individuals with IDD have been affected in the first 100 days of the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Methods
Shortly after the first COVID‐19 case was reported in the USA, our organisation, which provides continuous support for over 11 000 individuals with IDD, assembled an outbreak committee composed of senior leaders from across the health care organisation. The committee led the development and deployment of a comprehensive COVID‐19 prevention and suppression strategy, utilising current evidence‐based practice, while surveilling the global and local situation daily. We implemented enhanced infection control procedures across 2400 homes, which were communicated to our employees using multi‐faceted channels including an electronic resource library, mobile and web applications, paper postings in locations, live webinars and direct mail. Using custom‐built software applications enabling us to track patient, client and employee cases and exposures, we leveraged current public health recommendations to identify cases and to suppress transmission, which included the use of personal protective equipment. A COVID‐19 case was defined as a positive nucleic acid test for SARS‐CoV‐2 RNA.
Results
In the 100‐day period between 20 January 2020 and 30 April 2020, we provided continuous support for 11 540 individuals with IDD. Sixty‐four per cent of the individuals were in residential, community settings, and 36% were in intermediate care facilities. The average age of the cohort was 46 ± 12 years, and 60% were male. One hundred twenty‐two individuals with IDD were placed in quarantine for exhibiting symptoms and signs of acute infection such as fever or cough. Sixty‐six individuals tested positive for SARS‐CoV‐2, and their average age was 50. The positive individuals were located in 30 different homes (1.3% of total) across 14 states. Fifteen homes have had single cases, and 15 have had more than one case. Fifteen COVID‐19‐positive individuals were hospitalised. As of 30 April, seven of the individuals hospitalised have been discharged back to home and are recovering. Five remain hospitalised, with three improving and two remaining in intensive care and on mechanical ventilation. There have been three deaths. We found that among COVID‐19‐positive individuals with IDD, a higher number of chronic medical conditions and male sex were characteristics associated with a greater likelihood of hospitalisation.
Conclusions
In the first 100 days of the COVID‐19 outbreak in the USA, we observed that people with IDD living in congregate care settings can benefit from a coordinated approach to infection control, case identification and cohorting, as evidenced by the low relative case rate reported. Male individuals with higher numbers of chronic medical conditions were more likely to be hospitalised, while most younger, less chronically ill individuals recovered spontaneously at home.
Background
Motor control issues are common for people with intellectual disabilities (PWID), resulting in difficulties with basic activities of daily living, including eating. Mastication, which is ...crucial for digestion and overall health, is poorly understood in this population. PWID shows frailty similar to older people, highlighting the importance of comparing masticatory motor control with older adults. This study compared the neuromuscular control of the masticatory muscles in middle‐aged, PWID and older adults.
Methods
A cross‐sectional analytical design was used. During the mastication task of a carrot piece (2 cm in diameter and weighing 0.5 g), surface electromyography was used to record muscle activity patterns from the right and left masseter and temporalis muscles. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to assess neuromuscular control. A z‐score normalisation of the first component's variance from PCA to identify those individuals with altered neuromuscular control. A mixed ANOVA was performed to assess the interaction between principal components, groups and body composition.
Results
Thirty PWIDs (aged 35–55 years), middle‐aged adults and 32 older adults were recruited. PWID and older adults showed decreased neuromuscular control of the masticatory muscles compared to middle‐aged control adults (P < 0.05). PWID had the highest proportion of individuals with altered neuromuscular control of the masticatory muscle (53%) compared to older adults (19%) and middle‐aged adults (0%) (P < 0.05).
Conclusions
Our results indicate that PWID and older adults have reduced neuromuscular control compared to middle‐aged adults. Notably, a significant proportion of the PWID showed altered masticatory muscle control compared to older adults. Further research is needed to explore the potential benefits of masticatory muscle training for PWID.
The Neurobehavioral Programs at Kennedy Krieger Institute constitute a comprehensive continuum of care designed to serve individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities with co-occurring ...problem behavior. This continuum includes inpatient, intensive outpatient, outpatient, consultation, and follow-up services. The mission of these programs is to fully integrate patient care, research, training, and advocacy to achieve the best possible outcomes with patients, and to benefit the broader community of individuals with severe behavioral dysfunction. The primary treatment approach utilized across all programs is applied behavior analysis, however the inpatient unit also provides fully integrated interdisciplinary care. Factors driving the development and expansion of these programs are described, as are the processes and systems by which the mission objectives are achieved.
Crippled Grace combines disability studies, Christian theology, philosophy, and psychology to explore what constitutes happiness and how it is achieved.The virtue tradition construes happiness ...aswhole-of-life flourishing earned by practiced habits of virtue. Drawing upon this particular understanding of happiness, Clifton contends that the experience of disability offers significant insight into the practice of virtue, and thereby the good life. With its origins in the author's experience of adjusting to the challenges of quadriplegia, Crippled Grace considers the diverse experiences of people with a disability as a lens through which to understand happiness and its attainment.Drawing upon the virtue tradition as much as contesting it, Clifton explores the virtues that help to negotiate dependency, resist paternalism, and maximize personal agency. Through his engagement with sources from Aristotle to modern positive psychology, Clifton is able to probe fundamental questions of pain and suffering, reflect on the value of friendship, seek creative ways of conceiving of sexual flourishing, and outline the particular virtues needed to live with unique bodies and brains in a society poorly fitted to their diverse functioning. Crippled Grace is about and for people with disabilities. Yet, Clifton also understands disability as symbolic of the human condition—human fragility, vulnerability, and embodied limits.First unmasking disability as a bodily and sociocultural construct, Clifton moves on to construct a deeper and more expansive account of flourishing that learns from those with disability, rather than excluding them. In so doing, Clifton shows that the experience of disability has something profound to say about all bodies, about the fragility and happiness of all humans, and about the deeper truths offered us by the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.
•Transport professionals (N = 175) in Aotearoa/NZ completed a web survey.•Analyses suggest that inclusive access is a complex issue for transport professionals.•There was a range of perspectives on ...why it is not more prominent in transport policy, or why outcomes are not better for older and disabled people using transport.•We argue that these findings are reflective of inclusive access being vaguely defined and poorly measured in transport.•It is recommended that inclusive access in transport policy is improved with measures that link policy and design choices to outcomes.
Inclusive access to transport is an important determinant of health for older and disabled people. Despite transport policy increasingly focusing on wellbeing and equity outcomes, transport professionals’ understanding of and approaches to delivering accessible transport remain poorly understood. Transport professionals (N = 175) from a range of government and private sector organisations in Aotearoa/New Zealand completed a web survey. Questions covered respondents’ views on what might make inclusive access a more prominent transport policy objective; their approach to accessibility for older and disabled people in their work; and the extent to which they engage with older and disabled people in transport practice and design. Analyses suggest that inclusive access is a complex issue for transport professionals. There was a range of perspectives on why it is not more prominent in transport policy, or why outcomes are not better for older and disabled people using transport. In-person engagement between transport professionals and older and disabled people is infrequent. We argue that these findings are reflective of inclusive access being vaguely defined and poorly measured in transport. Consequently, compared with transport policies such as road safety which have clearly measurable outcomes, improved equity of mobility is reliant on design standards and transport professionals’ awareness and training. It is recommended that inclusive access in transport policy is improved with measures that linkpolicy and design choices to outcomes, ultimately benefitting the health of all people, and that of older and disabled people in particular.
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